French President Nicolas Sarkozy was forced to seek refuge in a bar after a crowd grew increasingly hostile, the BBC reports. Carla Bruni's husband had been campaigning in the Basque town of Bayonne when he was met by hundreds of angry protesters who shouted boos and threw eggs at him. Riot police were needed to guide Sarkozy into the local pub.

Sarkozy, who never misses a chance to inflame an already angry mob, referred to the protestors as hooligans said he was "saddened to see Hollande's [Francois Hollande, his main opponent in the race] Socialist militants associating with [Basque] separatists in violent protests to terrorise ordinary people who want just one thing: to meet and talk with me".